A new collaborative online adventure awaits art students at the city’s three biggest high schools. St. Albert Catholic, Bellerose, and Paul Kane are participating in the new edition of a monthly online art exhibit The Gazette will be hosting throughout the 2021-22 school year.
What started as with.draw.all last spring before turning into Re/LAUNCH/ing in the fall of 2020 has now turned into an exploration of colours and their influence on our feelings and emotions.
With all that in mind, get ready for the "blue periods" of hundreds of teenagers in Colour Scheme.
“Everybody always loves having their artwork in the paper,” confirmed Paul Kane’s Colleen Hewitt. “It's very validating for them. It creates some discussion around the idea that they're getting their work out there to the public, even though we're sort of isolating from everybody.”
“Being able to do something like this in an online forum, I think it's really important, and the kids, I think, feel that way, too.”
Teresa Wallsten of St. Albert High agreed, noting how each exhibit impacts the school community.
“As soon as it comes out, we send it out to the teachers for the high school newspaper. There's a little bit of chatter, saying, ‘Hey, did you see my artwork?’ There's a bit of a buzz. You can see … the art swagger, as I say, in the hallways or in the classroom,” she said, confirming that the publicity also does much to strengthen the students’ confidence while prodding them to go further with their skills and delve into deeper subject matter.
This new series of monthly online art exhibits will feature a theme that rotates through the colour wheel, with each stop allowing the students to use their creativity to examine how they affect our moods and our motivations. First stop: Blue.
Hewitt’s class has been researching art history specifically about Picasso and his famous blue period.
“The idea is that we have the colour. We can talk a bit about our history, we can talk about colour, and how colour is expressive of things like emotions and symbolic of many things,” she said.
Wallsten said these are good lessons even for teachers like herself.
“It gives a little bit of a challenge for us. For myself, I didn't really know too much about [Cerulean blue].”
As the classes discuss the possible interpretations of each colour, the students will then get to choose how they will use that in their work. Each month, four pieces from each school will be highlighted online on The Gazette’s website at www.stalberttoday.ca on the last Saturday of each month.
